5 ms·
> Is that something we require from companies? In Germany, yes. For mass layoffs, this absolutely has to be considered. In general, the older the employee is,
by mschuster91 10mo ago
> Is that something we require from companies?
In Germany, yes. For mass layoffs, this absolutely has to be considered. In general, the older the employee is, or if the employee has dependents, the more difficult it gets to both fire them or lay them off.
- WalterBright 10mo agoGermany's GDP is shrinking. The regulations that make it hard to lay off someone have an equal and opposite effect of making companies very reluctant to hire. This impedes the efficient allocation of labor, resulting in a poorer GDP.
- monocasa 10mo agoIt looks like Germany's GDP has increased every year in recent memory except 2009 and 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany#Data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany#Data
- WalterBright 10mo agogoogle [german gdb growth] says: "-0.2% annual change (2024)"
- omnicognate 10mo agoThe "GDP Growth (Real)" column in the wikipedia article GP linked agrees, but it doesn't tell a story that justifies "Germany's GDP is shrinking".
- WalterBright 10mo agoSee the graph "G7 Real GDP % change compared to pre-Pandemic level": https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02... The US has 13.3% growth and Germany 0.1%.
- M95D 10mo agoBecause of AI and it's indirect effects, such as electricity demand.
- bojan 10mo agoTwo points: 1) GDP is, while very important, not the only measure of country's prosperity And 2) how much of those 13.3% is being hoarded by a single-digit amount of companies?
- WalterBright 10mo ago> hoarded Productive companies do not hoard wealth. They invest it. GDP is not a measure of wealth, it is a measure of production.
- tremon 10mo agoSoftbank -> OpenAI -> Oracle -> Nvidia -> Intel -> Microsoft. Over 1 trillion dollar invested in total. Where is the production?
- nickpp 10mo agoI (and most of the people I know) are happily paying for ChatGPT (or one of its competitors) every month. The value I get from it dwarfs the tiny fee.
- WalterBright 10mo agoI'm a paying subscriber to both ChatGPT and Grok and am a satisfied customer. It's fun to compare the output of both.
- bojan 10mo ago> They invest it. Where? Where is the growth in other sectors then?
- mschuster91 10mo ago
- hsbauauvhabzb 10mo agoI would 100% chose to live in Germany than the USA. GDP is one consideration, but QOL more important.
- WalterBright 10mo agoLive wherever you want to!
- hsbauauvhabzb 10mo agoThat’s an odd response. My point was GDP alone is a poor way to measure a country.
- WalterBright 10mo agoIt's a measure of the economy.
- hsbauauvhabzb 10mo agoOr a measure of quality of life. But it sounds like you’re only interested in pro-American talking points.
- WalterBright 10mo agoIt's nearly impossible to measure quality of life, because everybody has a different idea of what that means.
- hsbauauvhabzb 10mo agoYou mean like the human development index and various other measurement techniques?
- WalterBright 10mo ago
- _DeadFred_ 10mo ago"The Stupidity of GDP per Capita" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiymTzsZfoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiymTzsZfoA How much of this years GDP growth in the USA went to average citizens? What does GDP growth matter if your citizens have zero access to healthcare, can't improve their conditions, can't innovate, can't try new ideas because they are tied to healthcare via their current job? How much of American GDP growth goes to Billionaires and isn't a useful health metric? See: Billionaires added record $2.2tn in wealth in 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/31/billionaires-added-record-wealth-2025 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/31/billionaires-ad...
- WalterBright 10mo agoBillionaires become billionaires by making and selling things people want. Obviously, a lot of people want what they are selling, and think it is worth buying.
- dTal 10mo agoThat's such an excessively naive, childlike take that it's hard to know where to start. You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things". That doesn't scale beyond the low millions. You become a billionaire by leveraging existing capital to rearrange bits of the economy in such a way that money flows towards you [note]. Productive output, be it goods or services (which you seem to have forgotten exist) is strictly optional. You think Warren Buffet sits in his garage cranking out widgets? What planet are you on? [note] For example, you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price.
- WalterBright 10mo ago> You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things". See Microsoft, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, Pixar, Lego, and on and on. > you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price. Example?